CASTING INNOVATIONS
Supply Chain Collaboration Streamlines Part Logistics In 2015, Monarch Industries
Ltd., Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, began work with a customer to convert a large family of diffi cult-to- produce and costly weldments into three common machined, painted and partially assembled ductile iron castings. T e parts are used in agriculture equipment that includes fi eld cultivators, soil fi nishers, chisel plows, disc chisels, and air till drills. T e “walker” provides the main mounting structure for the wheels of the tillage equipment, allowing tan- dem wheels to walk or pivot around the central bore as it rolls over rough terrain. Most of the weight of the equipment is supported by this part. Over time, as the manufacturer designed new pieces of equip- ment or new sizes and variations, additional walker weldments were designed with slight changes to width, length, bore, offset angles, and other specifications. Each weldment contained an average of eight different pieces of square
or round tubing and plasma/laser cut plates. Eventually, this family of weldments grew to 17 different part numbers with 136 subcompo- nents. Each of the 17 weldments were needed in inventory for pro- duction and service requirements. Monarch Industries approached
its customer to help convert the weld- ments to castings, with the walker identifi ed as a fi rst project to work on together. T e goals to redesign the walker into a casting were to: • Reduce the number of distinct weldments to as few as possible.
• Remove the need for left- and right-hand versions.
• Commonize coreboxes. • Reduce the amount of machin- ing required.
• Increase the strength of the part. • Decrease costs. • Provide a ready-for-assembly part including full machining, painting and preassembly.
After providing estimates to con- fi rm the project made sense fi nan-
cially, castings were designed and then revised through web-based meetings where solid models could be viewed and manipulated and design criteria could be discussed and understood. At the same time, machining and as- sembly criteria were discussed. The final design proved a suc-
cessful first conversion. Together, the customer and Monarch reduced the number of parts to just three, and the customer reported the cast- ings provide an average 30% reduc- tion in cost over the original weld- ments. In addition, the machined castings provide tighter tolerances and better dimensional stability. The casting design eliminates the need for left- and right-hand versions, and the casting process allowed extra material to be placed in areas where strength was needed for a stronger part. T e customer said the casting re- sulted in a part with a cleaner look and it freed up plant capacity in its welding and fabrication departments.
The walker casting signifi cantly reduced the total part numbers and inventory needed for the customer’s tillage equipment manufacturing facilities. 46 | MODERN CASTING August 2016
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